After reading some of the posts in here regarding trading for steals vs. forfeiting the steals category, I am wondering the same about Saves. Could we open up some discussion on that? I'd like to hear opinions, both pro and con.

My boyfriend/commish says he forfeited Saves a few years back and regretted it. I guess I'm wondering why if one category (Steals) is considered by some to be disposable, why not Saves?

In a deep league with a lot of teams, it's probably worth forfeiting saves if you can trade your closers for good value to fill the other holes on your roster. In a shallow league such as 8 teams it would be wiser to keep your closers since its easier to build a solid lineup from top to bottom when there are fewer teams.

The odds of the AL MVP coming from the American League are looking pretty good.

you shouldn't outright forfeit it. that is unless you have one great closer and nothign else anyway. But I don;t think aiming for the middle fo the pack in saves is such a bad idea. I think the thing is, you can get your sbs in the context of player who does other things too. liek beltran or soriano etc. saves, you need a pretty one dimensional player, and at any given time there are only thirty of those players to go around. on the other hand, winning stolen bases counts the exact same as winning saves, and with less heartache. so if you can finish in the middle of saves, finsih high in sbs, they average out to be pretty good, and then yous till have the other categories. in roto, I like to think of it as a report card. does you noo good to get a's in math and science and fail english, history and art. you would much rather get cs and bs. witha n a here or there.

In our first year of our league...we all realized that shutouts were not a viable stat..so we voted to eliminate those...this year..several members of our league have already sent me votes to eliminate steals...no one is getting shutouts due to finishing games by committee and no one is stealing bases any more...we have added "on base percentage" and "holds" as replacements

Fantasy sports are ruled by the 50-50-90 rule...
Anytime you have a 50-50 pick between two players, 90% of the time, you'll get it wrong!

Some people don't mind giving up steals because the guys that get you steals don't usually help with HR's and RBI's, so you could potentially help yourself in two other categories by giving up one. Closers are some of the best pitchers out there and not only get you saves, but can help in K's, ERA, and Whip, plus pick up a few wins along the way, so you would be giving up a lot more than just saves.

disagree. the elite basestealers will get you five categories to a debatable three, more likely two cateogories that a closer will. beltran or soraino, or patterson or abreu are all much more sueful in my opinion than a gagne etc. Even though those palyers aren;t considered bastealers primarily, youc ath my drift. Closers don;t help that much in era or whip, they helpa bit. but they don;t have enough IP to erase the msitakes of a bad sP staff. some can get ridiculosu K totals though.

it depends on how your league is set up. in a 5x5 roto league i wouldnt punt saves (or any category) unless you were hit hard by injuries (i.e. drafted nen and percival).

in my head to head league there are a total of 19 categories (10 hitting and nine pitching). each cateogry won is just one point so holds are equal to saves. looking over the results, i usually win one category or the other, but rarely win both. since no one drafts holds guys very high, i could have dumped saves in the draft and just gotten a bunch of bats and not been any worse off. the idea is that i would draw even with the oppenent as far as relievers go but should win the hitting categories because i had more high draft picks go to bats.

Hey Gretzky, guys like Soriano and Beltran are definitely more valuable than a closer, that goes without saying. I was talking about guys like Roberts and Alex Sanchez who only get you steals. In my H2H league I've won some weeks in steals thanks to guys like Abreu, Pudge, and Garciaparra, but I've lost a lot more. But I'm not about to drop a guy like Juan Gone for Dave Roberts.

In my first post I meant to say closers could help A LITTLE in ERA and WHIP, but more importantly they are not going to hurt you. We also track holds in my league and the guys I had were killing my ERA for the few holds I was getting and it wasn't worth it, so I dropped them all and just take it on the chin every week in holds.